What's on Your Mind?

'Gun' control

The NRA must be thrilled. Fourteen students were injured in a knife attack at a Texas college. They will argue that since not all crazies use guns to attack people, there is no point to gun control. This is, of course, nonsense. Recently, several writers here reprinted the Second Amendment, asking what don't people understand about "shall not be infringed."

Here's what gun-nuts ignore: "well-regulated militia, "the people" and "arms." "The people" is a collective term, referring to the citizenry as a whole. The Amendment doesn't say the right of "each citizen" or "every person" to bear arms, only the right "of the people" collectively. This must be taken in conjunction with the militia clause, since the citizenry, "the people," constitute the militia. It's "necessary" for that militia to be "well-regulated," which clearly allows for regulations on what arms "the people" can keep and bear.

Additionally, the Amendment says "arms," not firearms. This distinction existed in the 18th-century - "arms" could mean knives, pole-arms and swords, which are regulated. The Amendment doesn't say "all arms," and in conjunction with the "well-regulated militia" and the collective right of "the people," cannot be construed to prohibit all regulations on guns.

David Henning

Sheboygan

Practical cuts

There has been some argument about Paul Ryan's budget proposal and the cuts that he suggested. I have seen a list of 56 of his recommended cuts. None of them affect Social Security or the military and the cuts affect only ridiculous and unnecessary waste of our taxes such as:

The total amount for all 56 recommended cuts is $2.5 trillion over 10 years. I don't know who or what party sponsored these expenditures, but I think we can live without spending that kind of money.

Norman Veldboom

Oostburg

Disgusting 'lefties'

Anytime a figure like Margaret Thatcher dies, there is an outpouring of both like and dislike. The disgusting display of the lefties in Britain celebrating shows the level they have sunk to. All they care about is getting more dole from the taxpayers, so they can riot when the rest of us have to work.

The disgusting lefties are surpassed only by the AP, lionizing a thug like Chavez of Venezuela. Denigrating Thatcher, mainly because the left cannot stand a conservative, but really dislike a conservative who doesn't kow tow to the almighty media. She said what she meant, and turned Britain around from being a third-rate country to becoming a country allowing their people a chance to earn a living. The ones who hated her only want handouts and the opportunity to have time to riot.

George Kren

Sheboygan

Won't be effective

Gun legislation, if any is passed, will be weak and ineffective, and periodic violent events will continue unabated. Drug and alcohol abuse will also continue to rise despite the $1 trillion aggregate cost since the "war on drugs" was started. Our country is literally impotent when trying to alleviate the underlying issues that drive these issues: income inequality, wage stagnation, consumer debt, perpetual war, and poverty.

Coming to grips with reality may be all but impossible, as most are distracted by corporate efforts to veil these flaws with soothing images of an idealistic land that never existed. A true patriot will fight to eradicate these issues. The faux patriot's efforts extend no further than the rear bumper of their car, where a cheap slogan is displayed. If you want to support the troops, how about fully funding the VA so our vets have timely access to healthcare? If you agree "freedom isn't free," how about volunteering to help a deserving child learn to read? The highest form of love for your country is to see its flaws and work tirelessly to solve them.

Mark Briese

Sheboygan

Modern horrors

Thank you for Sunday's front-page story, Bitter Memory, featuring local Holocaust survivors. It warns us of the devaluation of human life that enabled the national socialists both to legally exterminate millions of people, whom they declared to be less than human, and to snuff out the lives of all "useless eaters" who did not benefit the state.

We are reminded of this horror today when our own pro-abortion activists demand taxpayer funded abortion even "after birth," and "common core" curriculum advocates agitate for a national database to track the aptitudes and attitudes of every child in the country. One shudders at the thought of what the Nazi national socialists and the Soviet collectivists, who also slaughtered millions of their own citizens, could have done with such a tool.

Art DeJong

Sheboygan

Obamacare costs

Some of the more enlightened Democrats are now seeing what the Republicans meant when they warned that Obamacare is a huge mess. Some employers have taking their employees off the insurance plan in effect now, and opting to pay the much lower government fines rather than pay the higher costs of the premiums. Others are cutting work hours to 30 per week, making them part-time employees, not eligible for health care insurance.

Paul Ryan and other Republicans saw this coming and gave warning but to no avail; it fell on deaf ears. Now some of the more alert Democrats are asking how did this happen? Those Democratic senators are starting to hear complaints from their constituents, and are rightly worried for being part of this fiasco called Obamacare. Beware, this will cost us a huge amount of money, much, much more than you were ever led to believe.

Jack Wirtz

Sheboygan

Enforce current laws

Regarding the new proposed immigration laws, at a time when our students are having a hard time finding jobs after completing college, our esteemed government leaders want to allow more workers in on visas claiming our students are not smart enough, plus educate and employ children of illegal immigrants whose parents broke our laws coming here. I know that it is not the children's fault, but our government's, because of the government's inability to enforce the immigration laws already enacted in 1986.

Giving these children all the benefits of citizenship will not solve the problem of illegal entry into this country. Amnesty never does. New laws such as those proposed will only enhance the desire to continue entering our country illegally to obtain benefits that we do not even give to our own citizens. Strict adherence to our established immigration laws is the only way, not amnesty. There already is a pathway to citizenship. Enforce it.

Rosemary Reiter

Sheboygan Falls

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What's on Your Mind?

The NRA must be thrilled. Fourteen students were injured in a knife attack at a Texas college. They will argue that since not all crazies use guns to attack people, there is no point to gun control.

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